


Bedside Talk

by NorroenDyrd



Series: The Divine's Right Hand [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Bedside Vigils, Chubby Inquisitor, Denial of Feelings, F/M, Food Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mentioned Varric Tethras, Pre-Relationship, Self-Esteem Issues, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 21:19:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14387325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: A chubby Cadash, who may or may not have a crush on Cassandra, takes it a bit personally when she derides her relatives as 'fat and 'lazy', and forces himself to starve to appear more attractive to her... Which obviously does not end well.





	Bedside Talk

The face that looks up at her from the lumpy, pancake-like pillow (the only kind Seggritt had in stock 'for this measly price you people are ready to pay me') seems... faded. Like the covers of the books a person has had for too long. Though if anyone dared suggest that the person is Cassandra herself, she would shut their blathering mouth with a well-aimed shield bash. She hoards no books among her belongings! And certainly no romance novels with handsome faces - faces like the Herald's - on the cover!  
  
Ahem. The point is. The Herald's facial outlines have grown greyish, like traces of half-dried-up old ink on yellow paper. Even his beard - the pride and joy of any dwarf, as Varric mockingly observes, cupping his own barely stubbly chin - seems thin and lacklustre, coloured the shade of watered-down tea instead of the flaming ginger that Cassandra remembers.  
  
It is heartbreaking to see him like this. Because of his importance to the fight they are fighting, Cassandra tells herself.  
  
Because how are they going to keep up with the rifts that go on lacerating the Veil and squeezing out demon after demon after demon? Who is going to banish these many-eyed, acid-salivating monsters, and seal them in the realm of nightmares where they belong?  
  
Now that the Herald - the only person capable of doing all of that - has collapsed under the weight of his own battle axe, thinking he could take on a feral bear that had been ravaging the farmholds in the Hinterlands, and not even managing to make a single step towards the beast before he folded himself up like a flimsy cardboard cutout.  
  
Now that he has had to be carried back to camp, and then to Haven, on a stretcher (after his comrades got rid of that bear, of course: Varric climbed a boulder and taunted the beast, and while it clawed at the stone and grunted in frustration, struggling to reach him, Solas froze it up with an ice spell, and Cassandra shattered the resulting bear-shaped husk by striking at it with her blade a couple of times).  
  
Now that the Herald is bedridden, too weak to do anything but breathe, his chest rising and falling so sparsely that it appears almost completely still. Now... What will they do now? Without him... without the Mark bestowed upon him by Andraste? Pondering that would leave anyone heartbroken, surely. Cassandra needs no other reason to wish, her heart clenching into a tiny ball of flesh in the midst of a vast, echoing void inside her chest, that he would open his eyes, and break into a healthy flush instead of that waxen yellow, and call her name. No... No other reason at all.  
  
The Herald moans and mumbles something slurred and half-inaudible - and, all her rationalization flying out of the window, Cassandra gasps and claps her hand against her throat (almost knocking the wind out of herself in the process).  
  
'Herald?' she asks, cringing at how shrill and girlish her voice comes out. 'Cadash? Erik? Can you... Can you hear me? Do you understand where you are?'  
  
His lids flutter up, revealing two dim, bleary slits.  
  
'Haven?..' he whispers vaguely, before letting his eyes slide shut again. 'Don't remember... getting to Haven... from the Hinterlands... Was I ever... in the Hinterlands...'  
  
'You were,' Cassandra confirms, ordering herself to sound businesslike. 'You lost your senses during a fight. The healers say...'  
  
And out of the window it all flies again.  
  
Cassandra throws up her arms and sets forth a whole torrent of rushed, vehement, jumbled speech.  
  
'The healers say that you have been sustaining yourself with nothing but water and a handful of dried fruit for many days now! And that this was the reason why your body gave in! Why... Why would you do that?! Why would you deny yourself meals?! You are a warrior - you need your strength! Maker's breath, Cadash, starvation is a type of torture! And learning that you have been torturing yourself... it terrified... I mean, it outraged me! Because it's terrible - terribly irresponsible! The Inquisition is relying on you - and you... and you...'  
  
She waves her hand in annoyed resignation and falls silent, unable to get a hold of the thoughts that buzz within her skull like a swarm of stinging bees.  
  
Cadash, in turn, winces; his mouth makes a tiny, piteous twitch - and then, a single murky tear rolls down his sunken cheek.  
  
'I... I thought... you hated people like me...' he croaks, finishing the phrase with a whimper at the back of his throat - which makes what he says next barely coherent. 'F... Fat people...'  
  
When Cassandra deciphers what he had been trying to say, it takes her a second or two to process. Only after a brief lapse of intense thinking, with her brow furrowed and her lips pursed, does it hit her. With a dazzling flash that may have been the work of some pesky Fade denizen pressing against the thin Veil, she finds herself transported into a strikingly vivid memory of a snow-powdered training yard; of the distant clamour of the recruits' weapons filling the air; of Cadash, hovering in front of her with his hands clasped shyly on his soft belly, and asking her tremulous, rather naïve questions, like 'Are you... Are you really a princess?' - and of herself, spitting out something disdainful about the stuck-up, useless nobles from the Pentaghast clan.  
  
Fat and lazy, she called them. Fat and lazy. Back then, in the heat of the moment, too incensed by the thought of her relatives blathering about old glory and not moving a finger to live up to the family name, she did not even pause to consider how Cadash may have taken her turn of phrase. But she sees it now - the way the has hurt his gentle, round, sensitive self. Hurt him enough to start refusing to eat, testing his limits to the point of collapsing - all for the sake of... Impressing her?  
  
Heavens! As if she were shallow enough to demand that Cadash be naught but a mound of smooth, honed muscle!  
  
She is a warrior herself, not some sheltered parlour maiden who judges men by bards' tales (some of which still are... quite entertaining). She knows that many of the strongest fighters have a god layer of chub coating their muscle; and Cadash is strong!  
  
Strong enough to cleave a demon in two with his axe; strong enough stop a falling beam in a burning house from crushing a petrified, scared child; strong enough to haul a refugee's wagon out of a mud pool, so that the poor woman might get her family to the nearest intact village before sundown. And strong enough to have withstood the mockery of his Carta brethren all these years, to have endured the volley of slurs they pelted him with for being a 'wimp' - and to continue playing games with children, and drawing bright, happy pictures, and daydreaming, and braiding wilted surface flowers into his beard.  
  
'I do not hate people like you,' she says quietly, clasping Cadash's fingers in hers. 'I hate people like my relatives... Lazy, self-absorbed hypocrites. You are none of these things. You are...' she bites into her lip, blushing.  
  
'There is nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with you. I spoke brashly and thoughtlessly; I regret that now. As I regret being the cause of your suffering. But you... you will be taking better care of yourself from now on, won't you?'  
  
Cadash presses his lips into something akin to a smile, and inclines his head in agreement. Cassandra breathes out in relief, her clenched-up heart slowly swelling to its natural size. The sooner he starts eating again, the sooner he is on the mend, the quicker the Inquisition will resume its work. That is the reason why she will remain at his bedside all this time, until he returns to his former self. The sole reason. She has no other ones - none at all.


End file.
